This is the heart of the matter Dan.
If you look at the whole picture, Asbury Park over the years has
done enough.
We were the dumping grounds for Marlboro hospital.
We were the ones who allowed our housing stock to go mutifamily to
help the poor.
We are the ones who built federally subsidized housing to house the
poor.
We are the ones that take in more section 8 than any other town in
the county.
We are the ones suffering the segregated High School so we alone
have to educate the poor to the exclusion of the rest of the County.
We are ones to house the County's methodone clinic.
We are the base for the Salvation Army.
We are the home of interfaith neighbors.
In fact, I understand there are over 80 non-profits helping the
poor, and heard someone say once that non-profits helping the poor
is Asbury Park's largest industry.
We are the ones with 39 churches all helping the poor.
We are the ones who allowed homeless people to sleep at City Hall,
even attracting homeless from other towns.
We are the ones perpetually trying more initiatives to help the poor.
All of that goodwill, YET EVERYTIME THERE IS A MORAL OBLIGATION TO
HELP SOMEONE ELSE, EVERYONE LOOKS TO ASBURY PARK TO SHOULDER THE
LOAD!
The town with the most limited resources is tapped to handle the
county and state's pressing social problems.
When Father Bob wanted to build the Center, he was pastor of a
church with srawling, open acres in Wayside. Not in his backyard -
he built it here.
Now comes the Market Street Mission to bring us more of the poor to
help.
Not one other town in Monmouth County does a fraction of what we do
for the poor. Yet when a new challenge comes, they look at us and
start holding "moral obligation" over our heads.
Where is the moral obligatins of the other 51 towns in the county?
How dare anyone, EVER look at the people if Asbury Park and inquire
whether they will step up to help the poor. Go ask the other 51
towns if they will, for once, help the poor instead of Asbury Park.
Now comes Jim Keady. He marches into the place that is weary from
helping the poor, and starts preaching to us that we have to do
more.
That is why he comes off as so arrogant. We've done all that and he
rides past the other 51 Monmouth towns to take us to task for not
doing enough? It's insulting.
If someone like you Dan comes into the middle of an argument between
me and Jim Keady, and see's Jim saying do more for the poor and me
disagreeing with him, it is easy to paint him as the good guy and me
as the bad.
That of course is intellectually lazy, because knowing all the facts
above leads to the conclusion that Jim Keady is going to give us the
straw that breaks the camel's back, while I want to (long overdue)
strengthen the camel.
If poverty is our problem, we shouldn't expand poverty here. We need
a bigger base of middle class and (finally, hopefully) some upper
class.
Let Jim Keady fight for the poor in some other town that isn't doing
anything for the poor.
I'd support him.
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "dfsavgny" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> --- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, Allan Peterson <nnjallans1@>
> wrote:
> >
> > please define the agenda?
>
> They believe keady will fill the city with soup kitchens and
shelters,
> in other words, to give it to the poor. That has been said here
> verbatim.
>
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
